


The Skywalker Ascension

by waywardrose



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Gen, Lightsaber Battles, Retcon, Retcon Timeline, The Force, everyone loves Finn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22355959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardrose/pseuds/waywardrose
Summary: "All the Sith live in me," he vows."Youwill be empress, andwewill be one."While disgust churns her gut, she will not hate, she will not give in.To him or to anyone.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Rey & Ben Solo
Kudos: 7





	The Skywalker Ascension

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't exactly a fix-it, nor is it reylo friendly. It's a kinda-sorta different ending than what was offered. Think of it as an adjacent. Also, this is not my usual writing style. I'm experimenting.

On Kef Bir, Kylo replays the last conversation he had with Han and throws his lightsaber into the turbulent ocean. It's not erasing the past. It's choosing something on his own terms. And maybe that's not choosing the light side, but he can't let Palpatine take control of the galaxy.

He can't let Rey face him alone, either.

* * *

On Ahch-To, Luke confirms that Rey's Palpatine's granddaughter, and that Leia knew all along. It breaks Rey's heart in a way she can't articulate. The family she thought she would find is truly gone and never coming back. The blood family before her she doesn't want.

She wants Leia and Luke, Chewie, _Han_ , Finn and Rose and even difficult Poe. And deep down, secretly, she wanted to bring Ben home from the _Supremacy_. But she wasn't good enough, or smart enough, to get him to see where his home was.

With the Skywalker lightsabers and Kylo's wayfinder, Rey goes to Exegol in Luke's old X-wing, sending coordinates to the Resistance as she goes. The interior of the ship smells like seaweed and salt and old plastoid. Luke's helmet is a surprisingly good fit.

Exegol is what she feared a Sith planet would look like: no sun, no life, discordant flashes of lightning overhead as the smell of burnt ozone and failed experiments pervade the air. The Sith throne of thorny spikes is terrifying and intriguing. It calls to her, yet also repels her. It's just like her dreams—the ones where she sees herself seated like a ruler with Kylo Ren at her shoulder, their glowing yellow eyes boring into her.

The amphitheater fills with the chanting of thousands. She doesn't know who they're chanting for. Then she does when a slithery voices states, "Long have I waited."

A hooded figure dangles like a grotesque puppet from a long mechanized arm. The thing has no feet; its pale hands are rotting, bones visible. She wants to run when it becomes obvious this... _this thing_ is her grandfather.

Or what's left of him.

He offers the throne to her, calls her Empress Palpatine, tells her its her birthright. When she assures him she hasn't come to rule, he points out her anger. She's too angry to be a Jedi. She wants to kill him.

Rey shakes her head, but he smiles and says he wants that too.

"All the Sith live in me," he vows. _"You_ will be empress, and _we_ will be one."

While disgust churns her gut, she will not hate, she will not give in.

To him or to anyone.

Her grandfather labels her weak, calls her parents weak. But they had secreted her away well enough that even the most powerful Sith in the galaxy couldn't find her. She came on her own, revealed herself to him because she wanted to. She dares now to change the course he set out for her before she was even born.

Overhead, the Resistance fights the Sith fleet and is losing. She can feel the deaths as they rain down upon the barren land.

Palpatine blames her, and she knows he's right. Palpatine offers her an empire, and she knows she can stop this if she takes it. Palpatine submits his life to her, but she knows it's at a heavy price.

She'll become just like Kylo, only worse with dreadful power and the righteousness of thousands of Sith behind her eyes.

Through the haze of death, she feels a new presence she thought she'd left behind: Kylo Ren.

Only he isn't exactly Kylo. He isn't really Ben, either. However, he has a resolve she's never sensed from him outside of a fight. She turns to her grandfather and nods, because the time has come to end this.

* * *

Ben flew the tattered TIE through the maze of space anomalies by memory to get to Exegol. No one gave chase as he dodged dogfight after dogfight above the planet. No one stops him now from entering the citadel, either.

At least, until he's halfway to the amphitheater.

He's paralyzed by the sight of his knights, though he can feel them feeling him. They know he's changing, and he doesn't hide it.

"Explain yourself, Master," Vicrul calls as the six of them approach.

"We are not Sith," he grits. "I won't bow to an emperor who's hidden in the shadows for thirty years."

"Palpatine is strong."

"As is his spawn," Ushar adds when the other five encircle Ben.

Ben asks, "You call living decomposition strength?" He shakes his head. "That's fear." He looks to Ushar. "You, of all people, should know that."

"What about the Jedi?" hisses Ap'lek.

"Does she feel like a Jedi?" he returns, turning his hands out.

Ap'lek snarls through the vocoder. "Too angry."

"Rey is Rey," he agrees. "She's more like you than she realizes."

"She's _a Jedi."_

"She has Jedi training, yet no loyalty to Palpatine." He resists going for the blaster tucked at the small of his back. "Just like us."

Vicrul says, "Just like you, you mean."

"And who have you been following all these years? The First Order? Snoke? _Palpatine?"_

Cardo bows his head. "You, Master."

"But you aren't him anymore," Ap'lek says.

"Fight me or follow me," he growls, sick of justifying himself. "It's your choice." He can't stop how his voice rises as he continues, "I'm choosing to destroy the one who's lied to me! And enslaved us _for over a decade!"_

Trudgen rests their cleaver-like blade on the ground as Kuruk turns his head to look at his fellow knights.

Vicrul states, "We are no slaves."

"Then why're you stopping me from killing some decrepit old sithspit?"

It's a tense, long moment before Cardo steps aside.

Ben takes the opening and runs, blaster in hand. He hears the echo of Palpatine's proclamations to the swarming amphitheater.

On his left, a robed zealot, possible guard, steps around the corner. He shoots without looking, knowing he got them square in the chest. He can't be distracted. He must get to Rey before this goes any further.

Rapid footsteps from multiple people come up behind him. He recognizes them and wants to thank them, but there's no time. They wouldn't appreciate the gratitude, anyway.

He sprints into the arena, shooting the first guard he sees. The Knights follow, tearing through whoever steps in their path.

Rey stands in the middle of the arena with Palpatine, surrounded by at least a dozen guards. His grandfather's lightsaber lit in her hands and ready to strike Palpatine. It's some kind of ritual, because Palpatine isn't retreating.

_"Do it!"_ Palpatine demands of her. "Make the sacrifice."

She appears torn and desperate, on the verge of tears. He calls to her. She turns to him. The moment their eyes meet, her expression changes. Her face screws up with determination. She throws the lit lightsaber to him.

It flips through the air, high overhead. The smooth, resonant swish of it centers him as he catches it by the hilt. This is what should've happened on Starkiller. The saber sings as he swings and spins. He cuts through red-armored limbs, torsos, and necks.

Rey unhooks a second lightsaber from her belt as she deflects blaster bolts from Palpatine's guards. Sparks fly around her like fireworks. Between her, him, and the Knights they take down the majority of the guards. He Force-pulls the last guard to him, stabbing them through the chest.

Then it's still.

Palpatine has since backed away. He hangs meters above the ground. Alone. Cornered. With nowhere to hide.

Ben approaches Rey. The Knights—now only five—prowl behind them. They understand each other. Maybe he'll never be the one she would reach out to. He can't be Han. He can't live up to that. Maybe she'll never trust him. There's been too much pain and grief for that. 

But in this? In this, they see the same.

As one, they face Palpatine.

Palpatine bares his blackened teeth. "Stand together. Die together."

With one hand, Palpatine immobilizes them. With the other, he blasts the Knights with lightning. They all go reeling back. The lightsabers tumble across the ground like debris. He smells burnt flesh.

Then he and Rey are pulled forward and brought to their knees before Palpatine. Something about the movement draws forth a shock wave from them. It hits Palpatine, and he wheezes.

Before their eyes, Palpatine's frayed hands start to regenerate. The flesh, healthy and supple, grows over the bare phalanges.

Palpatine ponders aloud, "The life-force of your bond..." He holds up his healing hands and grins. "A dyad in the Force. A power like life itself—" He inches closer. "—unseen for generations." He reaches out for them again. "And now the power of two restores _the one true emperor!"_

Instead of a shock wave, Palpatine pulls the energy to himself. It burns and aches and fills Ben with a despair he's never known. He can't breathe, can't move. All he can do is convulse as his eyelids get heavier. Beside him, Rey screams.

Palpatine laughs in reply, his milky eyes turning gold.

It's the last thing Ben sees before everything goes dark and quiet.

Inarticulate chanting draws him from soft silence. He can't tell if it's been a minute or a century. Rey lies beside him, facing away. She's still unconscious. He lurches to his side. His limbs are too heavy. Nothing wants to obey his commands, but he wills them to. He must get up. He must keep Palpatine from taking everything.

He staggers to his knees and almost lifts himself to face Palpatine when he's heaved into the air by the Force. He can't protest or fight it. His head is wrenched down so he has to look Palpatine in the face.

"As once I fell, so falls the last Skywalker," Palpatine growls before flinging him back.

Ben sails through the air as if punched in the chest. Rey remains insensate as he's thrown away. He catches a glimpse of the Knights, scattered and smoldering. His hip suddenly smacks an outcropping of rock. It's a miserable agony. The hit spins him to face the bright abyss of an unnatural fissure in Exegol's crust.

And then he's falling and falling.

* * *

Rey wakes alone on the arena floor. Above her, burning ships keel and rend. Lightning emanating from the arena disables whatever is in its way.

The surprise attack is all for naught. It's a failure.

It's _her_ failure. She did this. She brought the Resistance here.

She has to make it right, though she doesn't know how. She can't make it right on her own. She's not enough.

As tears roll down her temples, she prays for strength. She implores the Jedi, the light, all that's good in the galaxy to be with her.

She stares into the jagged light and breathes, "Be with me."

She sees beyond the lightning and into a place that's beyond the war, gravity, and time. At first, there are indistinct voices. She recognizes none of them, yet they speak to her. As the seconds tick by, she hears a whisper—one she knows she's heard before—and it tells her to take her final steps and rise.

Then she hears her name. Over and over. All different voices. Her name, said with compassion and understanding and warmth. They know her. They see her. They encourage her to bring back the balance—that she _is_ the balance.

Rey realizes then she's never been alone. They've been with her the whole time. She just...

She just hadn't recognized it until now.

One of the voices says, "Every Jedi that has ever lived lives in you."

Her heart expands and fills. She feels the Force like she tried to the first time on Ahch-To. She must rise—rise like the voices coax her to. Because she's not alone. They stand behind her, within her.

She rolls onto her side and puts her palm on the gritty arena floor. The Jedi urge her to rise. Not just to her feet, but into her power.

So, she rises. _And rises._ Until she stands, one with the Force.

She calls Leia's lightsaber to her and ignites it. She's not afraid. For the first time, she's not scared.

Palpatine stands in front of the Sith throne, whole and alive. "Let your death be the final story of the rebellion."

He throws lightning at her, but she blocks it and catches it with her lightsaber. He tells her she's nothing, that she's just some scavenger girl, that she's no match for the power in him. The lightning crackles over her lightsaber, prickles her skin. She clenches her teeth and pushes back.

"I am all the Sith," Palpatine declares.

"And I—" she says breathlessly as she reaches behind her, calling Luke's— _Anakin's_ —lightsaber to her.

When it lands in her hand, she continues, "I'm all the Jedi."

She ignites it and brings it forward, crossing the sabers together in a blazing blue X. Palpatine's lightning gravitates to the center of the X. She leans into the staggering power and fights for every step forward.

There's too much energy between them. The sabers protect her, but Palpatine has nothing. She thinks he could let go, get away, come at her from a different angle.

He doesn't.

He adds to it. As if wanting to overwhelm her.

Rey bears the pressure. She adds to it in one last, final wave. The lightning is no longer Palpatine's. It's hers. And she's going to destroy him.

She pushes the lightning back at him. It's white-hot and blinding. Palpatine cries out as her lightning overtakes him. It claws over his newly restored body, tears away at it. She pushes again, adding all she can muster inside to it.

The air flashes with heat and light. A miniature supernova. The ground rumbles under her feet. Palpatine is gone. The Sith throne crumbles. Lightning dances across the arena, demolishing support beams and the different amphitheater levels as it leaps from place to place.

With slushy joints, she twists to watch the destruction. Movement in the arena catches her fading attention as she sees a few Knights of Ren dodge the falling rubble. Through the haze and slow reverberations, she feels their fear and astonishment. She almost smirks, but she can't make her face do it.

She didn't expect any of the Knights to survive. She guesses she was wrong. Sometimes, she thinks, it's good to be wrong.

Her body is going numb, though. She knows this can't be good. She watches the powered-down lightsabers fall from her hands. She tries to take a step, but her knees buckle. The landing should hurt. There are so many rocks and rough pebbles.

Nothing hurts anymore. Not the arena floor as it comes up on her right. Not when her skull bounces against it. Not when she remembers who she's leaving behind.

She's okay. It's okay.

They'll be okay now.

* * *

Ben hears the destruction as he scrambles up the last craggy feet of the fissure. He's too tired to use the Force anymore. The left side of his hip throbs and screams at him.

He had caught himself on an outcropping hundreds of meters down. Or something had caught him. The memory is fuzzy. All he knew was that he had to climb.

He has to reach Rey.

Finally arriving at the top, he wrenches himself up. It twists something sharp in his hip. He bites back a grunt and uses the knee on his uninjured side to get to ground level. He knows Rey is fading. He has to reach her.

"Master!" he hears.

He collapses.

Hands are on him, lifting him away from the fissure. He groans and tries to stand on his own. His left leg won't hold his weight. He falls again. This time it jostles something higher in his gut that shouldn't be able to move.

He knows something is seriously wrong. He looks up at the three Knights around him. They know it, too.

He whispers, "Rey."

"Master, she's gone," Vicrul says. "We need to go."

Kuruk adds, "The _Night Buzzard_ isn't fa—"

"Rey," he commands.

Cardo moves to kneel next to him, looping one of Ben's arms over his shoulder. Together, they get him standing. It hurts the whole karking way.

It hurts to see Rey lying too still on the arena floor.

He allows himself to drop next to Rey. Her chest is still, eyes unseeing. He knows the Knights want to object to his squandering precious time with a dead body.

She's not dead, though.

She's very much alive in the Force. The flesh is crude matter, Luke had once said. Crude matter can be manipulated. The spirit, on the other hand, is inviolable.

Hence, Rey must persist.

Ben pulls her body into his arms. She's limp like a broken toy. He has to support her head to look at her blank face. All his logic drains away as he realizes how wrong her death feels.

He adjusts his hold as he thinks and thinks.

Palpatine said their connection was like life. A connection didn't disappear in death. He had denied any connection for too long, yet he couldn't kill his mother when he had the chance. He still mourns Han. He still feels Rey.

He hugs her, willing her to wake up and feel it.

She remains still.

A connection, he thinks. Like life. A dyad. The ancient philosophy of yin and yang. A balance.

She's dead. He's alive.

He knows what he has to do. He lays her across his lap and places his hand on her stomach. He concentrates on his breath. He wills it into her.

Breath is life. Breath is their connection.

He can give her all the energy it takes to keep a body going.

So, he breathes and centers and pushes it into her. It suffuses her chest. It collects in her heart. He hears his own heartbeat and gives its rhythm to her.

There are voices above him, but they are distant and unimportant. All that matters is the balance.

He almost pleas for her heart to listen when a cool hand touches his. It's hard to open his eyes. He doesn't have much strength left. But he opens his eyes to see Rey staring back. Her face is still as her eyes dance.

He knows the second she works out what he's done. She sits up, holding onto his arm. Her face fills with awe. She says nothing, but he hears his name in her gaze. Or maybe he's hearing her thoughts.

How inconvenient—to get understanding now, after everything is over.

He grins anyway. Or he thinks he's grinning. He can't tell.

He feels her touch his cheek. It's the only warmth in the arena. He knows what that means. He thinks he should be scared, but he's not.

His vision blurs, and he doesn't know why. He tilts his head down. Rey cradles his face in her callused hands and presses her forehead to his. She's too near to look in the eye. He closes his eyes and holds her ribs.

It's a miracle to feel them expand.

He smiles. He knows he's smiling. He knows she's smiling, too.

She pulls away as gravity surges. He can't stay upright. He's suddenly too heavy. Hands are on him. He doesn't know if they're pulling him down or keeping him off the ground. There's no direction anymore, no ground, no pain.

A hand holds his, though. He thinks it's Rey's. It feels nice.

He hears her silent _no._

_No, don't go._

He wants to tell her he's not going. There's still so much to do. He only needs some time. Just let him rest, he sighs. He'll be right back.

* * *

It's just as humid on Ajan Kloss as Rey remembers. So much so, they've all stripped down to the essentials to run the training course, which she added to when it became obvious she wasn't the only one who needed it. They all need a challenge, a distraction.

Down on the former landing field, Finn argues with Cardo about what constitutes cheating. Cardo is of the opinion that following the course is expected. One should plot their own path, he says, and destroy whatever's in the way.

Finn retorts, "That's not how a training course works!"

Cardo shrugs and strolls into the deep shadow of the cut-through in the mountain across the way.

Rey sighs from her place on the sidelines. It's a _discussion_ they've been having since the start.

Finn turns to her and throws his arms up. Before she can say anything, raised voices come from inside the mountain cut-through. Poe stomps out a second later, his bare arms smeared with engine grease. Through the Force he feels aggravated.

Evidently, he and Chewie still haven't gotten to the root of the _Millennium Falcon's_ new-motivator problem.

"What are _they_ still doing here?" Poe gripes as he marches up the low rise to where she's sitting on a log.

_"They're_ training."

"They're Sith."

"The hell we are," Vicrul growls from behind her. Rey didn't hear or feel her approach. Kuruk must be showing her how to sneak around.

Poe says to Vicrul, "You served Palpatine."

_"No,"_ Rey corrects. "They followed _Ben."_

"And Ben's dead—" Poe immediately grimaces and puts a hand to his forehead. "Kriff, I'm sorry. I shouldn't've said that."

Rey shakes her head. They're all off-balance these days. Poe confessed to her and Finn that he misses Leia. Terribly. Just like he misses his parents. It seems Leia's death has opened old wounds.

When they had been standing at Ben's funeral pyre, he told her he'd met Ben once. He'd been serving in the New Republic's navy at the time. Ben was a few years younger. He'd been sullen at Leia's side until she introduced Poe as an ace pilot.

He and Ben had talked about ships and new tech and the risks of being a pilot. He'd let slip he'd once been a spice runner. Ben had smirked and said his father had been one, too. Of course, Poe had known that. Everyone in the Resistance knew Han Solo's past.

He'd tried not to treat Ben as the son of legendary war heroes that day, but as a future pilot. He finished his story by saying he didn't know if Kylo had remembered him. He didn't think so.

Poe sighs, drained. "Anyway..." There's engine grease on his forehead. "Wanted to tell you soup's on. Maz and Beaumont are putting the first of the breads in the fire now."

"Thanks," she replies.

As Poe makes his way down the slope, Rey cheerfully calls after him, "Be sure to wash your hands!"

Poe looks at his dirty hands, touches his forehead, and curses. Rey grins. Finn leaves with Poe, all smiles and friendly shoulder-bumps.

"Shall we kill him for you?" Vicrul softly offers. "He seems like he needs a good killing."

Rey eases to her feet, grin remaining. _"No!"_ She wipes off the back of her leggings and then gives Vicrul a look. "Just because he's difficult doesn't mean he needs to die."

Vicrul hums in thought. "Finn wouldn't like that."

"No."

"Neither would Zorii." Vicrul takes a step closer and tilts her head. "Neither would you."

"And neither would you," a new voice chimes in.

Vicrul stiffens. They both turn to the voice to see Ben. He brushes a palm frond away from his translucent face and steps out of the underbrush. His clothes are dark, but a Jedi's: belted tunic, loose trousers, and protective boots. The scar she'd given him is gone.

Ben finishes, "If you were being honest."

"Master," Vicrul says, bowing her head and moving to the side.

Ben waves a hand to dismiss the title as he steps over the log. He appears pleased to see Vicrul, though. They share a moment, and Rey stays quiet.

"We'll talk after lunch," Ben says to Vicrul.

She nods to Ben, then Rey, before heading down the slope.

Ben perches on the log. "Cardo's taking short-cuts to piss off Finn."

"I know," Rey says.

"Finn needs to concentrate on his own training."

"I know."

"He's wasting his time trying to help you."

She sits next to him. "No time is wasted."

"Well, it could be better used is all I'm saying."

"Are you taking over to make sure time is _appropriately managed,_ then?"

"No, I mean—"

She cuts him off with: "I think the Knights would like that."

"Finn won't," he grumbles and wipes nonexistent dirt from his trousers.

"I should say not. You slashed up his back."

"And identified him as the defector to General Hux."

She softly whistles. "That's two strikes against you."

"I also burned his shoulder, punched him in the face, and called him a traitor."

_"Well!_ Let's begin the tribunal now."

He chops at the air in front of him. "Guilty."

She chuckles and looks over the jungle surrounding them. Ben is quiet next to her. Like he will be for the rest of her life.

As melancholia takes hold, Rey whispers, "I should've brought you back."

"For a slow death? No thanks."

"We could've taken you to a medcenter."

"Too far." He shakes his head. "My body would've died on the way."

She opens her mouth to retort, but Ben stops her with a gesture.

He says, "It was my destiny. I chose this when I put on the mask."

"Snoke— Luke..."

_"My_ parents. _My_ grandparents. _Your grandfather."_ He sighs. "It's finished."

"The Skywalkers are dead."

What she once thought a myth—Luke Skywalker returning his father to the light and pushing back the dark, pushing back imperial rule—was real and yet is gone. Leia Organa, her mentor and the last princess of Alderaan, is as well. Han, who she'd begun to view as a surrogate father, was taken. Before that, Anakin Skywalker: freed slave turned famed Republic general. Padme Amidala: formidable queen and accomplished senator.

Ben Solo, named after Obi-Wan Kenobi and Leia's last hope.

The heroes are dead. She wonders what the galaxy has now.

Ben places a hand she can't feel on her forearm. "Long live the Skywalkers."

Their eyes meet. She doesn't know what to say. He gives her a look that is at once him, but also his father. She sees Leia, too. And Luke.

Ben fades. A fragile sound escapes Rey's throat. She doesn't want him to go. They're not done yet. _We're not done,_ comes the reply. A breeze ruffles the leaves just as he disappears from view. It feels like _home._

She smiles even as a tear rolls down her cheek. _Rey Skywalker_ does have a nice ring to it, she thinks and heads down the slope to join everyone for lunch.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://the-wayward-rose.tumblr.com)


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